Six Students of The Ohio State University, Columbus, USA Completed Their Year One NSF Project at Ad. Mfg. & Mecha. Lab of MED 14/05/2015 To 21/07/2015

As part of a 3-year grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF), in association with The Ohio State University, Colorado State University, Santokba Durlabhji Memorial Hospital Jaipur and Malaviya National Institute of Technology Jaipur; six under graduate engineering students of The Ohio State University, Columbus, USA worked in Advance Manufacturing & Mechatronics Laboratory of the Mechanical Engineering Department for ten weeks on Jaipur Foot. Invented in India By Prof. P.K. Sethi in 1971, Jaipur Foot has risen to its popularity and utility as product by reaching to masses as far as 26 countries mainly to low income group lower limb amputees. However, to improve it further the research team consisting of Dr. Tammy L. Haut Donahue, PhD of Colorado State University, Dr. Lisa Abrams, PhD & Dr. Sheryl Sorby, PhD of the Ohio State University, Dr. Harlal Singh Mali, PhD of MNIT Jaipur and Dr. Anil Jain of SDMH Jaipur proposed three main objectives: decrease the overall weight of the foot, facilitate the development of a mass production model, and to maintain biomechanical responses in the foot while improving the longevity of the product.
The team consisting of mechanical(Kassandra Oxendale), metallurgical(Ingrid Huang), industrial(Nick Lennon) and bio-medical(Jared Seidel, Spencer Leckrone and Carlos Mendez) engineering students worked on four sub-projects in the first year of this three-year project. M Tech Production Engineering students of MNIT Priyanshu Singh & Nitesh Kumar also worked on the project. The first of these was the mechanical properties testing of all materials currently utilized in the foot's composition. The second, in correlation to the first, was the construction of a computer aided design (CAD) model of the Jaipur Foot to understand the stresses acting on the foot through finite element analysis (FEA). Thirdly, a patient and material database was developed in order to track and analyze conditions of failures in the hospital's hundreds of yearly prosthetic patients. Finally, a test fixture was designed and fabricated to record mechanical properties of the materials for quality-control purposes. As shared by the students on the valedictory the project proved to be an socio-cultural amalgamation among students of the lab along with professional learning. The item is also reported at The OSU webpage https://engineering.osu.edu/news/2015/08/engineering-abroad-buckeyes-take-next-step-prosthetic-foot